


Merchant of Death

by Utini501



Series: Utini501's Overwatch Prompt Extravaganza [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A lot of people forget that, Dark, Gen, Moira is an evil bitch, Reaper is an evil bastard, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 04:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18275345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Utini501/pseuds/Utini501
Summary: First of many Overwatch prompts I'm writing (Or in this case, reposting independently. Wrote it and deleted it so I could fine-tune it). A lot of them are based off of prompts from the Tumblr blog Overprompt, but not all of them.Prompt: Talon has kidnapped Torbjorn. Moira attempts to get him to cooperate with Talon and troubleshoot a superweapon by lecturing him about his role in the Omnic Crisis, and threatening to announce that role in the deaths of millions of humans to the world. When that fails, Reaper makes a much more direct threat against his family.https://overprompt.tumblr.com/post/179307750698/talon-has-kidnapped-torbjörn





	Merchant of Death

_'Feh. Now this is a fine mess I've gotten myself into...'_ Torbjorn Lindholm mused internally. He wiggled around in a chair seated in front of a table and did the same with his wrists, trying to do the best he could to alleviate the discomfort from the cuffs keeping him restrained to his seat, while simultaneously trying not to pay attention to the harsh red Talon logo painted on the wall of the room he was imprisoned in.

It just happened out of nowhere. Yesterday morning? He was speaking at Stockholm University, serving as a special guest lecturer for aspiring engineers. And later that night, when he returned to his hotel room for a good night's sleep before heading back home in the morning? He was ambushed by a pair of Talon stealth troopers that forced their way into his room. He fought valiantly, but due to being well past his prime and caught without his trusty rivet gun, the assailants overpowered him, knocked him out cold, and hauled him off. And now, here he was: likely miles away from home, trapped in a Talon base with his future uncertain... and his family and friends none the wiser.

_'They'll catch on sooner or later. Reinhardt, Brigitte, Angela, and that beeping bucket of bolts? They're not stupid. When I don't return home, they'll realize something is amiss and search for me. Talon can't keep me here for long...'_

Torbjorn had no idea why Talon was holding him captive: did they need him as a hostage? Were they going to torture him for information? Whatever it was, it was bound to be unpleasant, and painful as well. The dwarf-like mechanic had to admit that he was a little afraid of what was to come, but he wasn't about to panic. He survived the Omnic Crisis and all it's horrors. He was a prominent figure in the fight against Talon once they rose to power. And even after Overwatch's end, he's had a few scrapes with dangerous rogue Omnics. So whatever was coming, he could handle it. He was sure of it. And when the automatic door to his cell slid open, he tensed up, took a deep breath, and braced himself for whatever came his way...

"Torbjorn Lindholm," a feminine, familiar-sounding husky voice called out from the doorway. "Now there's a sight for sore eyes."

Torbjorn wrinkled his nose in disgust when the speaker walked into view: tall, thin, and gaunt with pale skin and fiery orange hair, dressed in black robes like an evil sorceress...

"Moira O'Deorain..." Torbjorn growled at the sneering scientist as she took her seat opposite of him, smug as can be. "I suppose I should be surprised, but honestly? You always did strike me as the type of scum who'd happily rub shoulders with Talon."

"Come now, Mr. Lindholm," Moira scolded with a sarcastic wagging finger, "Is that any way to greet a former colleague? And after all the trouble I went through to make sure this was a happy reunion..."

Torbjorn silently fumed, and glared daggers into the scientist's void of a soul. He never interacted with Moira much during her stint with Blackwatch during Overwatch's heyday, but he never liked her. It wasn't just her sense of smug superiority or the way she callously talked down to others, but he always felt that there was something...  _off_ about her. When she looked at people, there was no joy or tenderness in those mis-matched eyes of hers. She always seemed to look at people with an odd detached curiosity, as if they were potential lab rats she wanted to cut open and do... god knows what to. And now that he knew she was deep in bed with the world's most dangerous terrorist organization, that look of sociopathic fascination on her face scared him more than ever.

"Oh, stop beating around the bush you weasel-faced hag!" Torbjorn spat, to which Moira scoffed in amusement, "You had me abducted from my hotel for a reason, so let's hear it! Do you want to dissect me, or perform sick, twisted experiments perhaps? Let me guess, you've  _never_ had a dwarf for a test subject and you just  _can't wait_  to get me under the knife, HMM?!"

"As cantankerous as ever, I see." Moira observed with a light chuckle. "Well you need not worry: I am not here to hurt you. No, more than anything... I need your help. Or rather,  _we_ need your help." Moira gestured at the Talon symbol flag, and the gears in Torbjorn's head clicked together.

"Ah... I see where this is going: you and your gaggle of goons want me to help you develop gear for Talon, hmm? Have me crank out weapons and armor to help pave the way for you to seize control over the world?"

"You're close." Moira admitted as she reached to a small holographic projection disk attacked to her hip and placed it on the table. "Take a good look at this."

The projector turned on, and showed a ridiculously huge Omnic that had to be the size of a skyscraper and was as wide as an aircraft carrier. It's monstrous appearance looked vaguely familiar, and after a few seconds Torbjorn realized exactly what he was looking at.

"That's... the colossal Omnic that's been attacking South Korea! What's it called, Grishin, Gwishin..."

"Gwishin would be correct." Moira replied with a nod. "It is not, however, the same Omnic that Korea's M.E.K.A team has been fighting. In truth, it's a completely different specimen that we found lying dormant off the coast of Bikini Atoll in a state of disrepair."

"God above, there's  _two_ of those things..." Torbjorn muttered to himself, absolutely horrified by the ramifications.

"We haven't a clue as to how it came to be. An educated guess would be that it is another product of the East China Sea Omnium, and that it fought with the Korean Omnic and lost for reasons unknown to us." Moira mused, before shaking her head dismissively. "But that's hardly important. What  _is_ important is the fact that we are now in possession of a  _very_ valuable asset. An asset of immense size that, if the Korean Omnic is any indication, can level cities, kill soldiers by the thousands, survive catastrophic damage, and adapt to any strategy employed against it."

Torbjorn grit his teeth, and narrowed his one good eye. He had seen pictures and reports of the destruction created by that monstrous Omnic in South Korea: flooded cities with buildings reduced to rubble, hundreds of corpses eerily floating and bobbing above the water... it was bad enough that an independent Omnic was wreaking that kind of havoc, but one controlled by Talon? The damage on a world-wide scale would be catastrophic.

"However, the Omnic has been heavily damaged and won't be seeing action in the field anytime soon. For the last few months, a team of engineers from our Research and Development department have been working tirelessly to get the beast working again, but thanks to it's immense size and complex inner workings, it has been a most tedious process... and that? Is where  _you_ come in, Mr. Lindholm." 

"Oh ho, I know where this is going..." Torbjorn sassed, which got a wolfish grin out of Moira.

"You are to take the helm and lead the effort in getting this beast up and running." Moira ordered. "Your feats as an engineer are legendary, and you know Omnics better than anyone."

"Figured as much." Torbjorn grumbled, "Well, I hate to disappoint you Moira, but I'm not lifting a finger to help. Go find somebody else to help work on your killer robot."

"How queer." Moira mused, crooking an eyebrow at Torbjorn's defiance. "It isn't like you to pass up the opportunity to tinker with destructive machinery."

"Not when innocent lives are at risk, you psychopath!" Torbjorn growled.

"Funny, I could have sworn that such a thing was your forte."

Torbjorn's defiance made way for shock, with Moira's words acting as a metaphorical sucker punch to the gut.

"Wha- No. NO! Don't you DARE lecture me about... about..."

"How your work on early Omnics led to millions of lives lost in the Omnic Crisis?" Moira asked, her comment cutting deeper than any knife could. "There is no need. The death toll speaks for itself."

Torbjorn glanced down into his lap and let out a heavy, regretful sigh. He was about to hear a familiar spiel thrown his way for what felt like the hundredth time, but it was going to hurt below the belt like always. He just knew it.

"You were an outspoken critic of Omnic intelligence, but did you actually take any meaningful action to prevent Omnic progression from advancing? No: you stood on your podium bellowing and hollering but shut up and fell in line when the Ironclad Guild was contracted for Omnic development. Under your tenure you worked on Bastion units, war machines in the purest sense. With gatling guns to tear people to shreds and a tank configuration to reduce buildings into rubble, countless lives were lost to these beasts. You also helped develop the Titan Omnics, and never once thought that those towering robots would ever be repurposed into weapons that could effortlessly flatten buildings and demolish entire city blocks by themselves."

Torbjorn opened his mouth to object, but the grumpy loudmouth had nothing he could really say in his defense. It was true, all of it. He never went beyond loudly criticizing the development of Omnics, and the ramifications went beyond the Omnic Crisis: even now people were still being killed by Omnics that went berserk for any number of reasons.

"Even ignoring the weapons you helped design, your inaction has led to far more blood on your hands than what came from the Omnic Crisis. Null Sector's attack on London, the second Omnic Crisis in Russia, your guildmate Sven's rampage in Boklovo... had you truly put your foot down on your anti-Omnic stance, these disasters would have never transpired."

Torbjorn remained silent, and breathed harshly through his nostrils.

"So let me make our terms clear, Mr. Lindholm. You  _will_ help troubleshoot the colossal Omnic for us. We expect you to work tirelessly and efficiently, and by the end of each week we expect you to make a significant amount of progress towards it's operation. Should you drag your feet, intentionally sabotage the project, or rebel against us in any way, punishment shall be delivered swiftly and without mercy."

"Then punish me, why don't you?" Torbjorn huffed defiantly, in spite of the humiliation he just endured. "Torture me all you want, but I'm not doing it! I've got enough blood on my hands as it is!"

"Oh believe me, nothing would bring me greater joy than teaching you a lesson in pain," Moira hissed, her affable facade melting away before the surly Swede's eye, "But I was outvoted by the rest of Talon's council of leaders. Despite my medical expertise, they ruled that torturing you ran the risk of killing or otherwise irreparably injuring you in the process, thus defeating the point of enlisting your help. So torture, sadly, is off the table... but I  _do_ have other ways of making you cooperate. Something far worse than mere physical pain..."

"Short jokes? Feh, yours might honestly hurt worse than Reinhardt's..."

"I will light a torch to your name, your very legacy, and burn it all to ash." Moira explained, an ugly smirk on her face. "Talon holds far more influence over the mainstream media than you realize. With a snap of my fingers, hitpieces, news articles, and documentaries will flood the airwaves, and each and every one of them will go in detail over your role in the Omnic Crisis, and how your inaction and inventions led to the loss of so many innocent lives. No longer will you be Torbjorn Lindholm, Overwatch founding father and legendary engineer. You will be remembered by the public as a merchant of death, a man who is drowning in the blood of millions... and your awards? Commemorations? All shall be stripped away, and you will be left destitute."

Torbjorn had no words. He simply stared on the rambling witch, his face betraying no hint of any emotion whatsoever.

"Now should you cooperate with us? We will release you without a fight, and your good name shall be left intact. In fact, you can feel free to fight the Omnic as you see fit, it matters little to us. All we wish is to see that monster in action, to have it ravage humanity, and in turn inspire them to grow stronger as they fight back. A never-ending cycle of violence that will further mankind's evolution!" Moira made a clutching motion with her gnarled, twisted hand and brandished it triumphantly into the air before calming down.

"Now what shall it be, Mr. Lindholm? Will you cooperate? Or will you dig your heels in, and force us to take extreme measures?"

Torbjorn sat in silence, mulling over Moira's options... and laughed. He laughed harshly, mirthfully, and mockingly at the scientist's woefully ineffective threat.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Are-Are you  _serious?!_ " Torbjorn sputtered, his good eye tearing up from laughter, " _That's_ the best you can do?! Say bad things about me on the news and the internet?! I've had the wrong idea about Talon all along: you're not dangerous! You're PATHETIC!"

Torbjorn slapped his prosthetic hand against the arm of the chair it was cuffed to and resumed his mirthful fit of laughter. "You think people don't  _know_ that?! For the last thirty years or so, I've had that thrown in my face time and time again! People who lost their loved ones to the Omnics, people whose homes have been destroyed, people who simply want to push me around and take cheap shots! You try to tar and feather me, and nothing will change! NOTHING!"

For once, Moira looked genuinely taken aback. Her heterochromic eyes widened in surprise, and she went from smugly looming over Torbjorn to sitting up straight and leaning away while defensively holding her arm to her chest. It was clear that this was  _far_ from the reaction she was expecting, and Torbjorn was all too aware of it. He pressed the attack, and pointed with his good hand towards the stunned scientist.

"Feh... you know something?" he asked, having calmed down from his laughing fit. "You're just like every other stinking, smug little engineer I've worked with: high as a kite off the smell of your own farts, convinced that you're god's greatest gift to mankind! People like you don't give a damn about helping the world or bettering your fellow man, you want people to bow down at your feet and worship the ground you walk on! And every single person like you? Heh, you're so in love with yourself that you  _can't stand_ it when people talk bad about you! To you, insults and a tarnished legacy hurt so much because you're such a fragile little  _loser_!"

Moira clenched her gnarled hand into a fist, her clawlike fingernails digging into exposed bits of handflesh and drawing blood. 

"And because you're so damned self-absorbed, you project like mad and expect everyone to have the same fears and insecurities! Well take a good look at me, O'Deorain! I'm short, I'm fat, I'm ugly as sin, I'm indirectly responsible for millions of deaths! I'm already a walking, talking punching bag as far as the public is concerned, so what's a bit more negative attention?!"

Moira's lips curled into a horrifically hideous scowl, and color was slowly seeping into her ghostly face.

"By all means, go ahead and air my dirty laundry to the public eye. But don't forget that while you hide all evidence of  _your_  misdeeds and associate with Talon in the shadows, I'll be scrapping evil Omnics, fighting Talon, and making the world a better place, bad reputation and all! So why don't you take your "terms" and shove them where the sun doesn't shine?!"

Now completely beet red in the face with her hands soaked in blood, an enraged Moira lost all semblance of self-control and dignity: with a frustrated growl, she reached forward and extended a series of thin purple tendrils towards Torbjorn. They latched onto the little fellow, and began painfully draining the life out of him. While they glowed and pulsated vibrantly, Torb's skin grew grey, veiny, and lifeless. The pain was unbearable: he felt like his very soul was on fire and wanted to scream, but all he could manage was weak gasping and pained grunting. For a second he really thought he was going to die... until a black, clawed hand wrapped itself around Moira's arm and restrained it, causing those voracious tendrils to release Torbjorn from their grasp.

_**"Enough, Moira."** _

Now barely clinging to life thanks to Moira's attack, Torbjorn was convinced that Death himself had come to take him away. And one could hardly blame him for jumping to conclusions: a mysterious man had entered the cell, and wore a haunting skull mask, dressed in a hooded outfit that was as black as the midnight sky, and spoke with a horrific voice that sounded less like a human being and more like a demon that crawled out of the deepest pit of hell.

"Reaper..." Moira growled at the masked terrorist, who shook his head disdainfully at her.

_**"We agreed against torturing him exactly for this reason. He's trying to provoke you into killing him."** _

"I am  _not_ going to kill him!" Moira snarled defiantly at her comrade, pulling her arm out of his grip. "I am merely showing him that his insolence will not be tolerated and-"

_**"You sure about that? I doubt he'd still be breathing if I didn't intervene."** _

Moira went red in the face and glanced down at the floor, her rage now giving way to shame as she truly understood the gravity of her actions.

"Forgive me, I allowed him to get under my skin and reacted foolishly. It shan't happen again, I promise you."

Moira then extended her right arm forward, and sprayed a thick golden mist at Torbjorn. The excruciating pain and weakness he had been suffering slowly subsided, and the color returned to his skin by the time Moira lowered her arm.

 _ **"No need to apologize."**_ Reaper growled while Torbjorn's senses began to clear up,  _ **"But we need to take a different approach. Shaming is a good method, but not when your mark has no shame to speak of..."**_

Now that the pain had fully come to pass, Torbjorn was now able to parse what all was going on. The Reaper... after Overwatch was disbanded, he had heard reports of a skull-masked wraith assisting Talon with costly terrorist attacks as well as hunting and killing former Overwatch agents. Each and every target of his was left a lifeless husk... was that going to be his fate at the end of all this? Even if it was, he couldn't, wouldn't show any fear. He wasn't going to let some coward hiding behind a mask scare him.

 _ **"Torbjorn Lindholm..."**_ Reaper mused as he folded his arms, and took Moira's place in front of the table. Instead of sitting however, he opted to stand and menacingly tower over the dwarf, likely to add to the intimidation factor. Torbjorn wasn't impressed in the slightest.

"Oh, you know my name! Good for you." Torbjorn sneered dismissively. 

 _ **"For someone as obnoxious as you, I'm surprised by how many loved ones you have."**_ Reaper droned with a noticeable snarl in his tone,  _ **"You have a beautiful wife who you've had nine children with.**_ _ **Reinhardt Wilhelm and Angela Ziegler are among your closest friends. And that Bastion unit living with you... you treat him well, despite your hatred for Omnics..."**_

"I may be obnoxious, but as Ingrid puts it? I'm  _endearingly_ obnoxious." Torbjorn huffed proudly.

_**"How does it feel, knowing that they're scared out of their minds, and have no idea where you disappeared to?"** _

Torbjorn grit his teeth, but otherwise didn't lose his tough, smug demeanor. "Feh! Well they'll find me eventually, and when they do? My daughter, Reinhardt, Bastion, Angela?! They'll put the lot of you in your place!"

 _ **"How does it feel, knowing that Ingrid is sobbing into Brigitte's arms, uncertain of what to do?**   **How does it feel knowing that Angela and Reinhardt are trying to keep your children occupied with fun and games, while a feeling of dread permeates the house?"**_ Reaper droned on, completely ignoring Torbjorn's remark. An act which put the man on edge.

"Wh-What do you think you're prattling on about?!" Torbjorn barked, a feeling of unease creeping across his back.

_**"Your family is so preoccupied with fretting over your well-being, that they're unaware of the danger they're in due to your unwillingness to cooperate."** _

Moira grinned smugly while Torbjorn's eye widened in shock. He was starting to put the context clues together, and the wind was considerably knocked out of his sails. He grew clammy and sweaty, and his heart hammered and pounded in his chest as he realized the just what Reaper was hinting at. 

_**"And poor Ingrid doesn't realize just how bad turning her back to a window is for her health..."** _

"Y-You wouldn't...!" Was all Torbjorn could gasp, his chest feeling uncomfortably tight and suffocating.

Reaper reached for an earpiece under his hood.  _ **"Widowmaker, take the sh-"**_

 **"STOP!"** Torbjorn cried out, banging his head on the table and pounding his fists on the chair arms in despair, "STOP IT,  _STOP IT!_  For god's sake, I'll cooperate! Please... please don't kill my Ingrid... pl-please..."

All dignity thrown out the window, Torbjorn didn't even try to fight back the tears streaming down his left cheek as Reaper paused, and fiddled with the earpiece one last time.  _ **"Stand down, but hold your position until I say otherwise."**_

"Oh... oh thank god..." was all Torbjorn could say, sighing with relief as the feeling of terror was dispelled. Moira laughed softly, evilly at his moment of weakness, but he didn't give a damn. Ingrid was safe, and that was all that mattered.

"Bravo, Reaper. It seems that you finally got through to him." Moira congratulated the hooded horror.

 _ **"Love... it's the greatest weakness of them all. Threaten somebody special to the person you're coercing, and they'll dance to your tune every time, without fail."**_ Reaper turned back to Torbjorn, and slowly leered down at him while pointing a threatening finger.  _ **"I'll show you mercy this one time, and after that? Each and every slip up will result in the Lindholm family growing a lot smaller."**_

"Understood..." Torbjorn sighed, completely and utterly defeated.

_**"Good. Tomorrow, we'll fly out to the Bikini Atoll site and put you right to work. Remember that your family and friends' safety depends on your willingness to cooperate. If you value their lives, then you better work diligently and professionally."** _

"I will, I promise. You'll get your machine of destruction..."

Reaper ignored Torbjorn and turned back to his partner in crime.  _ **"Moira, come. We're reporting back to the council."**_

"Oh, they should be quite pleased with this." Moira purred. She and Reaper took their leave, but before she shut the door, Moira turned back to Torbjorn and mockingly bowed to him. Even after she left, Torbjorn's eyes never left the surface of the table he was sitting in front of. There was no joy or life in the forlorn engineer's heart, no enthusiasm or energy bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. Just pure, regretful despair, at the lives that would be lost to yet another war machine of his...

**Author's Note:**

> Hey people, welcome to the start of a very irregular, only loosely connected series of mine: a series of Overwatch prompts! Because as obnoxious and stale as the game has become to play and as much as I hate the story's lack of progress and really weird retcons, I will always be in love with this quirky, amazing cast of characters.
> 
> So anyway, here's the first of what I hope will be many prompts. Overprompt has a lot of cool ones on their blog but I loved this one in particular because I really love Torbjorn as a character: partially because he was fun to play before his unnecessary rework stripped him of his identity, partially because he has amazing skins (Viking, Santaclad, and Ironclad all day, every day) and because he's surprisingly deep: a troubled anti-omnic bigot whose hateful rhetoric towards Omnics is seeded in his regrets for unintentionally playing a part in a catastrophic event, and is slowly overcoming it due to his experiences with Bastion? A foul tempered hothead who seems to annoy a lot of people, but nontheless is a good dad, a loving husband, and still a good friend to a select few? The fandom really sleeps on this guy and I won't stand for it!
> 
> So anyway, the concept of writing about him dealing with the guilt he feels was a lot of fun, especially with Moira and Reaper involved. I really do love those two (Moira especially, she is my waifu 4 laifu) but I feel that the fandom and devs tend to forget how... horrible they are as people. Like, Reaper is played up as an edgelord while the whole "murderous, traitorous, spiteful serial-killing terrorist" aspect of his character is forgotten about. Don't get me wrong, I love goofy edgy Reaper art like everyone else but I really don't mind playing him straight: as far as edgelords go he's hardly the worst I've seen, and the menacing voice and cool design make him work for me. Same with Moira to a lesser extent, a lot of fans try to downplay how evil she is and they're convinced that she's morally grey or not really that bad... when she is all but said to have sold out to a known terrorist organization long ago, performed horrible dangerous experiments on people, is openly sadistic in combat (She laughs softly when draining the life out of people), and goes as low as to bully Mei by taunting her about her dead friends. She's a horrible sociopathic piece of shit and I love her dearly for it because her wit and top-notch voice acting make her unhateable.
> 
> So anyway, hope you guys enjoy this! And uh... if you want a hint for the next prompt? Look at the other Moira prompts on Overprompt's blog. There are a lot of good ones. ;)


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